Britain is booming as foreign investors hit a new record

Britain has attracted its highest number of foreign investment projects since records began in the 1980s, according to annual figures from UK Trade & Investment for 2013-14.

Lord Livingston, Minister of State for Trade and Investment, said Britain had brought in a record number of foreign direct investment projects, which are thought to have created the highest number of new jobs since 2001.

The report says Britain attracted 14 per cent more projects than last year.

Dominic Jermey, the new chief executive of UKTI, said: ‘Investors in the Far East have consistently told me that the UK offers long-term predictable returns on investment in infrastructure not seen in other markets.’

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The former British Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates added: ‘I am going to see how we can develop business and trade relationships – the US is our largest source of foreign direct investment, it really matters to us, and the same is true in Europe. I also want to see how we can access the “Mints” and the “Brics”.’

Mints and Brics are acronyms invented by former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill for fast-growing emerging economies such as Mexico Indonesia, China and India.

Jermey said China-UK trade deals were ‘starting to be transformational’.

He was not concerned about a strong pound hitting British exports, he said, because ‘we compete on quality, not price’.